On Tuesday, Nov. 16, the General Student Senate hosted their weekly meeting in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union and held elections for chair positions.
The meeting opened with the resignation of Senator Peter Alexander as chair of the fair election practices commission. His resignation is not effective until Dec. 11. This is the third resignation in the last two weeks, leaving four chair positions open.
The senate voted on two of the chair positions during Tuesday’s meeting. Senator Kyle Ricker and Senator Michael Delorge were both nominated for the Membership Chair position in the previous meeting, but after Senator Ricker gave his speech, Senator Delorge promptly removed himself from the running.
“As someone who fully commits myself to everything I do, I promise if elected I will begin work immediately,” Ricker said. “It is an opportunity to prove myself to [the] student government and be involved.”
After Senator Delorge rescinded his nomination, Senator Ricker was elected to the position of Membership Chair.
They also held elections for the position of Representative to the Provost’s Council. Senator Jacob Chaplin was the only one nominated to the position, and therefore is the new Representative to the Provost’s Council. With this role, Senator Chaplin will be working directly with the Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.
For club maintenance, a representative from the men’s volleyball club spoke on behalf of the club’s efforts to receive final recognition.
“During COVID[-19], we lost [the] majority of the club, we were down to around four members,” the current President Noah Bourassa said. “There’s a ton of people here who want to play so I just want to give that to them while I can.”
According to Bourassa, when the club fell apart the former president handed it off to him and he is now doing his best to bring the club back to campus. According to Bourassa, they currently have 24 members on the practice team and 12 active members on the travel team and are seeing a lot of consistency in their numbers.
There was also a representative present from the International Affairs Association. They requested an allocation of $5,680 for their McMun Conference.
“There is a conference in January that we want to go to, the club has been going for at least a decade,” the treasurer to the International Affairs Association said.
According to the speaker, the conference is affiliated with Model UN and they were unable to attend last year due to COVID-19.
“What the club does at the Model UN is we are assigned to committees for different countries and then are each assigned a topic and then we collaborate with other people from different colleges and try to create resolutions for these topics,” the treasurer said.
Vice President for Financial Affairs of Student Government Frank Kelly contributed to the discussion by giving his opinion on the club.
“They followed all of the financial policies, they’re an awesome group of students and this is a really cool program,” Kelly said. “The year before COVID[-19], I think after this conference, they were invited to the World Model UN Conference, so hopefully we will see the same results this time with any luck, but I am heavily in favor of this.”
After a clear majority vote, the senate approved the funding request.
According to the Advisor to Student Government Lauri Sidelko, on Thursday, Nov. 18, the Office of Multicultural Programs is set to host the Family Feast. “The Office of Multicultural Programs took Multicultural Thanksgiving and Gay Thanksgiving and put it into one,” Sidelko said.
According to Sidelko, there is going to be enough Thanksgiving themed food for 200 people.
With Thanksgiving approaching, President of UMSG Inc. Zachary Wyles also announced that the student government will not be meeting next week in honor of Thanksgiving break, and therefore there will not be a senate meeting next Tuesday.
“Please enjoy your week off,” said Wyles.
Advisor Sidelko closed the meeting with a message from the Student Wellness Resource Center, where she works as the assistant dean and director of community life.
“A number of students are really struggling right now,” Sidelko said. “It is our job, all of us as part of this community, to be good bystanders, to help people, to keep an eye out for people that you’re worried about and if you are worried about someone reach out to me or somebody in the student life office who can help.”
The Student Wellness Resource office is located in the Memorial Union and Sidelko encourages everybody to listen to their gut and not to hesitate to reach out for help.